Free Nielsen sheet music
4 Nielsen scores on Artform's shelf, ordered easiest to read first. Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep.
Open the sheet music libraryCarl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Danish composer who grew up one of twelve children in a poor family on Funen, learned the violin from his housepainter father, and played in village dance bands before a military band and a conservatory found him. His six symphonies argue with themselves in a way nothing else of the period does; in the fourth, two sets of timpani try to derail the piece from opposite sides of the stage. Denmark put him on its hundred-kroner note, which is a reasonable summary of what the country thinks of him.
Start with these
The easiest Nielsen on the shelf, in order. Nothing here is graded and nobody is ranked: the shelf simply puts the pieces that ask less of your hands before the ones that ask more.
How the reader works
Each score opens as engraved notation you can read from the stand, and it plays: hear the piece first, then slow it down and loop the bar that is not working. There is nothing to install and no account to make. When you want paper, print it.
Every file is MusicXML, so MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico open them too.
Where to go next
If you are learning Nielsen rather than only reading, the scale pages cover fingering in every key, the chord pages spell out every chord, and the symbol dictionary explains any mark on the page you do not recognise.